mckinney vs. liddell

[mcglotherirvin]

first, welcome aboard sludaddy - mr. husak. we've heard great progress reports about your son, and apparently you did a great job instilling in him an excellent work ethic. in case you haven't heard about me yet, i was a promising young athlete brought in by coach grawer during his final seasons at slu. i got really mad one game, walked off the court, and never played again. anyhow, i have moved on and now enjoy contributing to the talk on the board.

just a question for everyone who has seen liddell play - who would you rather have, tommie or jimmy mckinney? the mizzou fans don't seem to think anyone not ranked in the top 100 can be any good (i have pointed out several times that he wasn't out there playing enough this summer to get more attention). but who would you take?

[Nate Latsch]

Good question.

Skill-wise, I think these two are pretty close.

I'd take Jimmy based on intangibles. The guy won a lot in high school and proved he was a clutch competitor.

Tommie still has some time to prove that, however.

- Nate

[aj_arete]

has over McKinney is size and long arms and better defensive ability. However, McKinney definitely has the better jumper. While I'm a huge McKinney fan, I do think Liddell might have more potential, but as Nate pointed out, McKinney has the intangibles and greater leadership skills. I think both of them will be fantastic college players.

[StLouBlue]

This just reminded me of a question. Which is better, to go to a school where you are the focal point of the team or to go to a school where you are just one of 3-4 or more competing for shots and minutes? For me this comes up when I think about Larry Hughes and Johnnie Parker. Hughes came here and was a star for his only year, but in that year had a chance to show all of his abilities and has turned it into an NBA career. Johnnie Parker who was similar to Hughes in high school went to Missouri and never really had a chance to be the star. He was stuck playing out of position in the 4 spot, and was over-recruited once Quinn came to town. Parker seemed like a good team player always doing what was best for the team and never complaining, at least I didn't hear any. Just wonder if Parker had the same opportunity as Hughes had, if Parker could have become a star instead of a role player.

[davidnark]

It didn't matter in Parker's case. I followed him from high school through college. He never had the handle and outside shot to be a great college guard, and he never had the size and strength to be a great power forward. He would have had similar struggles at SLU.

[billiken_roy]

coming from aj, that post is a pretty big compliment from aj. remember aj told us that mckinney is better than larry hughes.

i cannot comment on this question as honestly, i have never seen mckinney play. he was at vashon when they were shut out of the shootout. and i just dont watch the tigers play. thus i cannot comment.

now comparing tommie to hughes, imo they have a lot of the same style and success. at this point i am not ready to say that tommie is as good as hughes was in high school though.

[p diddy]

parker would have been better off going to slu instead of mizzou. he would have been allowed to play his natural position and grow as a player. they made him a power forward at mu and that was it. j.p. did show nice maturity in handling the entire situation of being screwed over by two different coaches.

bad boyz for life

[Jalensdad2002]

>Good question.

>

>Skill-wise, I think these two are pretty close.

>

>I'd take Jimmy based on intangibles. The guy won a lot in

>high school and proved he was a clutch competitor.

>

>Tommie still has some time to prove that, however.

>

>- Nate

We often have the same conversation on the East Side in reference

to Darius Miles and Laphonso Ellis. Does the fact that Laphonso

won 2-straight State Championship make him a better player than

Darius? I don't know. Basketball as far as I know has always been

a team sport, Skill wise I'd take Liddell. We all saw how Mckinney

struggled when pressure was applied this past year. Liddell has the

size and skill package to disrupt on both ends of the floor. If this

Horton kid is as advertised McKinney will be fighting for his minutes

this year. He may very well end up the odd man out ala Parker at Missouri. Would he have been better served staying home and return this year as an up and coming Sophmore at SLU or as an unproven Sophmore at Missouri. Time will tell

[aj_arete]

is that Liddell has playmaking skills. I have consistently said that Hughes was miscast as a point guard. I think that was validated w/ the Wizards' experiment last year.

I like Liddell and McKinney because both have the potential to play the point at the next level. While McKinney had his rough spots at the point his freshmen year, I still rate his leadership and ballhandling skills as superior to Hughes.

We'll find out this year, but I think you'll see a different McKinney now that he'll be able to play the wing more this year. While he won't be the one-man show that Hughes was able to be at SLU, I think you'll see that McKinney also can fill up the basket for Mizzou.

As for Liddell and McKinney, I was talking about Liddell having the higher ceiling. A 6'5-6'6 point guard w/ long arms, tenacious defense is a highly valued commodity at the NBA. Hence, I like Liddell a lot. However, he hasn't come close to acheiving the high school production of McKinney.

[thetorch]

Let's remember that Mckinney throughout his career has played on better teams than Tommie has. Mckinney played with a great sophomore in Polk, and a top 100 recruit in Kern. Vashon's roster is much deeper than ESTL's has been while Liddell has been there. Mckinney was never a one man show to the same extent that Liddell was. Now with some better teamates this year I think we will be able to compare Liddell better with Mckinney.

[billiken_roy]

aj said, "I still rate his leadership and ballhandling skills as superior to Hughes."

yeah right aj. hughes leadership was so inept that he only carried the team as a freshman to the second round of the ncaa tourney. the next year with the entire team back except hughes and adding justin love and the team didnt even finish 500. what a horrible leader.

and his ball handling skills are so inept he has only played point in 3 out of the 5 seasons he has been in the nba. of course he hasnt made any all-star teams as an nba point guard, but the fact remains he has played point guard in the nba most of his career as a starter. if mckinney is a better leader and point guard already than what larry was, then i only wonder why he too didnt declare and become a lottery pick last year like the terrible ball handler and non-leader, larry hughes.

[slufanskip]

Well said Roy .... After their freshmen seasons there is really no comparison between McKinney and Hughes

[aj_arete]

I still say it's much harder to run the point guard position than the off guard position. McKinney had to read the defense, break the press, organize his teammates, and make sure the offense functions smoothly. With Hughes, he was the SLU offense. He was so talented that he didn't need to read defenses. He simply took his man or two men off the dribble and scored. If you look back at his stats, he had an awful lot of turnovers. Now you can attribute that to the lack of playmakers on that SLU team and he was forced to do too much himself. However, I do believe he picked up some bad habits and his undisciplined ways have made it difficult for him to succeed at the point guard position in the NBA.

You seem to want to equate leadership with scoring ability. Hughes carried that Billiken squad, not by making his teammates better, but by simply being an overwhelming scorer. If that's the mark of a leader, then we need to say Kobe Bryant was a great leader early in his NBA career when he was jacking up shots and points. I'm sorry, but there's more to leadership than having a good crossover dribble and taking it to the hole with authority.

[billiken_roy]

just what exactly constitutes success in the nba? first off he just made it. how few even do that? then he has been a starter for most of his 5 seasons. and has averaged double digits throughout. just tonite he lead the team in minutes played and points. his fg% for the game was 62% and he had less turnovers then arenas did. if becoming an all-star is the only sign of nba success, it is sad that so few ever attain it. i think your grading scale is a little tough. that said, it will be interesting to see if mckinney ever starts most of the games for missouri the rest of his career, let alone ever make the nba. with conley in town and horton on the way, he may join johnny parker on the "why the hell did i ever come here?" list.

[jwd789]

Conley, Horton and Mckinney can all play on the floor at the same time without a problem. Mckinney will still get his minutes.

[p diddy]

a.j., you are really showing a real lack of basketball knowledge on this one. the best part about larry's freshman season was that he made everyone else better around him, despite his 20 points a game.

matt baniak had his best season as a billiken as a freshman. he was also on the all cusa freshman team with larry. after his year, we thought he was going to take off for the next three years, but it didn't happen. matt struggled without larry for the rest of his career.

luechtefeld also had his best year as a billiken as a junior when larry was around. larry also created open looks for virgil. scoring was just a small part of what larry brought to the table. he was great at finding the open man.

if larry was just about scoring. he would got his 20 points a game and the billikens would have still be just a .500 team. but because of his leadership and team play, the billikens won 22 games and went to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. It's no coincidence that the billikens had a losing record the year before he got there and theyear after he left.

had he stayed another year, he would have had another dominant scorer in love to play with, plus a shooter in cobbin and remember his high school buddy and best friend (justin tatum) was becoming eligible. if you saw them in high school, tatum's game reached another level with larry around. they never got to play together in college. had he stayed another year, he would have been playing with j. love, marque and maurice jeffers, plus all of the big guys. a final four was a possibility.

my suggestion to you a.j. is to refrain from any future discussion when it comes to larry hughes (at least on this board) because every time you do, you come off sounding pretty ignorant. and I know that is not the case because you know the game. larry may have his flaws in his game, but you just can't get past the fact that mizzou has had a guard as good as larry (including jimmy mckinney), regardless of what position he plays. johnnie, keyon, clarence, kareem, booker or any of those other guys just don't measure up to the legend.

bad boyz for life

and remember, we're talking about a player who played just ONE year of college ball and look at what he accomplished.

[Quality Is Job 1]

In the 16 years that I've been following college basketball, Missouri has not had even one guard/small forward as talented and dominating as Larry Hughes. While Mizzou has had some awesome players during that time (Anthony Peeler, Keyon Dooling, Kareem Rush, Rickey Paulding), none of them can hang with Hughes. As a freshman, Hughes was better than Peeler as a senior and Rush as a sophomore (or junior, take your pick). It's not even worth it to try to compare college play any further. Then consider Hughes' and Peeler's NBA production, and Hughes is STILL better. (I won't stoop to mention Dooling.)

Missouri fans may pride themselves on Missouri's consistently having talent superior to that of SLU, but not in the case of Hughes.

[mws26]

Horton won't be on the team until next year...asuming the NCAA's investigation doesn't scare off the recruits from signing. Gardner and Conley will be competing with Jimmy this year along with Paulding and Pulley.

[ACE]

Aj and his little Mizzou buddies just don't get it. Mizzou has never had a player as good as Hughes and that's hard for them to deal with.

Jimmy McKinney is a nice college player, but it's iffy if he'll even been an NBA player after 4 years. Larry was an NBA player after just one year. Case closed.

His comment about Hughes not making his teammates better is ridiculous. Did he even watch Billiken games that year? Hughes made guys like Baniak, Walker and Cobbin look decent. That takes talent!

[billiken_roy]

while i was in awe of larry hughes that one season at slu, and larry had moments and games that were almost surreal (the marquette game, the ball off of samaki walkers head for a dunk), the real appreciation for what larry hughes was came following the next season. virtually the entire team back and add justin love. they werent even a 500 team.

go read the quotes about larry after last nights games on the message boards and in the washington post. he might be finally about to break out to the standards aj seems to think he needs to be at to NOT be considered a failure in aj's eyes.

p.s. aj, if hughes is not a success, then pray tell as thicks points out, what do you consider peeler, chievous, sundvold, dooling, smith, etc that never did anymore if even as good as what larry has already done in the nba? you got a boatload of failures then i guess.

[aj_arete]

While I might look foolish with this statement, I still stand by it. I think McKinney has the most upside for the NBA than any player on Mizzou, including Paulding. I'm not looking at college production, just looking at skill sets and intangibles. Projecting players in the NBA is an inexact science, so if I'm wrong about McKinney, I'll admit in a few years. Since McKinney had an up and down freshman year, I'll back off on him and the NBA. He has a long way to go, but I do believe that if he had a different role, such as playing the wing at SLU, I do believe McKinney could have scored 16-20 ppg. However, I'm glad he was thrust in the point guard role at Mizzou, which I think will benefit him the most in the long run.

I'm not sold on Paulding at the next level unless he dramatically improves his ballhandling. Though with his athleticism and defensive skills, I can see him contributing off the bench. It's very difficult making that transition in the backcourt in the NBA.

Now I have not compared Hughes with any other Mizzou player, but I'll agree that his impact in the NBA has exceeded any Mizzou player, including Larry Drew and Anthony Peeler. That's not saying much though because Mizzou has never been known as a NBA factory. Hughes was fantastic at SLU and never said he wasn't a great scorer. However, I must admit that I expected Hughes to be a better NBA player with him being a lottery pick and selected higher than Paul Pierce. I remember vividly that Kentucky game where Larry tried to do it all himself and he was shut down.

[Schasz]

I saw enough of that KY game while waiting at Lambert to catch a plane to realize that no one player was going to beat them that day. Even as good as the Legend was that year, he wasn't about to beat KY all by himself, so what does that prove in the grand scheme of things???

[p diddy]

oh, you mean that kentucky team that won the ncaa championship that year.

a.j. you can't fool any of us here. just about every post you make about larry has a tinge of the negative in it, and that comes from your mizzou side. i know you won't admit it, but we all know the deal.

mckinney would have been great for slu as a freshman at the wing. he would have gotten plenty of scoring chances. we all agree with you. he would have been a great second option for marque perry last year to take some of the pressure off of him.

bad boyz for life

[Mobile-iken]

Please never mention Doug Smith on this board again...I am a huge Maverick fan!!!

[mws26]

>>As a freshman, Hughes was better than Peeler as a senior

As a huge fan of both of these guys, I'm not sure how one can qualify this statement with the differences in teams, conferences, schedules and most importantly coaches. I wonder what Peeler may have done in college if the coach handed over the reigns to him as Spoon did to Hughes. SLU was the Legends team in his one and only year and he definitely made a huge impact. Didn't he score over 600 points?!

I definitely agree that Hughes was better as a Freshman than Peeler and probably was better than soph and jr Peeler too. I just remember some epic performances by Peeler in his Sr season where he took over games. He had a pretty incredible senior season.